In a sense, this movie supports old fashion values. He is a coward when it comes to Jenny because he loves her, but he has no problem hurting hundreds of girls, because he only really uses them to inflate his wounded ego. Years later he sneaks off after having sex with her for the first time. He gets scarred just seeing her dance and kiss another boy at twelve years old, because he was too scared to ask her first. However, their relationship never rang true. It is about the only role he can really pull off. Garner is adorable, and McConaughey plays a perfect playboy. According to this movie, only damaged people sleep around. Early in the movie Connor points out the Daddy issue to a girl he is about to sleep with, but she responds that it is not true because she never even knew her father. Women become sluts because their Daddy neglected them. See When Harry Met Sally or Casino Royale for other examples. Lots and lots of sex does not guarantee happiness?Īccording to the sexual psychology of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, and many other movies for that matter, men become misogynists after they get dumped. In fact, considering how little time you might want to spend with Connor Mead, maybe he was doing all those girls a favor by breaking up with them so quickly. At just an hour and a half at least you don't have to spend too much time with it. One other thing this movie has going for it is its relatively short running time. Lacey Chabert as Connor's brother's bride-to-be also provides a few nice moments as the tense bride, but is also vastly under-used, which is a pity because she has more spark in her few scenes than Garner does in the entire movie. We get to hear about a few of his shenanigans (how Dean Martin once passed out at one of his parties) but see only a couple. I guess if you like McConaughey's good-old-boy act you might find him charming here, but just where he got that southern accent is a bit of a mystery since in the flashbacks as a boy he clearly doesn't have it.ĭouglas is good, but also underused. Whatever charm Garner might have certainly isn't used here as her part is small, generic and pretty dull. They're just a couple of mannequins, nice to look at, but not much charm. I've never been a big fan of either McConaughey or Garner and this movie didn't change my opinion. It's not as if he kept it a secret what kind of guy he was. Call me a sexist pig, but maybe the women Connor dated in this movie should have realized what kind of guy he was when they started dating him. Ironically, while this movie plays out like a female fantasy the bad boy is only bad because he was hurt in love and settles down when he finds the right woman it's really encouraging women to keep dating those bad boys, despite the fact that the real reason most guys like Connor sleep around with all those women is simply because they can and they enjoy it and they're not going to change no matter how magical the girl thinks she is. Through these visitations Connor learns that he's been a jackass all his life and the only way for him to be happy isn't to have endless and consequence-free (for him) sex with hundreds of beautiful women, but to settle down and marry Jennifer Garner instead. While preparing for his brother's wedding, Connor is re-visited by the ghost of his uncle who does his best Jacob Marley impression by telling Connor that he will be visited by 3 ghosts who will show him his past, present and future. After that event he was taken under the wing of his old-school playboy uncle played with lecherous relish by Michael Douglas. While in real life, a man such as Connor might just sleep with a bunch of women because he enjoys it, here in this female fantasy, he's just nursing a broken-heart and using his philandering to protect himself from ever getting hurt again, because when he was a boy his heart was broken by Jenny (Garner) when she danced with and kissed another boy. When the movie opens he even dumps three women at the same time via a conference call, while in the middle of seducing a fourth woman. You'd think that this might yield a clue to future women about what they should expect from a relationship with him, but no, apparently every woman who dates him thinks that he won't dump them, despite having dumped literally hundreds of women before them. McConaughey plays Connor Mead, a rich photographer/playboy who sleeps around with a lot of women with callous disregard for their feelings. This is a romantic comedy that is barely funny and not very romantic. If that sounds funny or intriguing in anyway, then I'm sorry to have mislead you. Instead of a miser learning the benefits of generosity though, it features a man who sleeps around who learns the benefits of monogamy. Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner star in this Dicken's Christmas Carol rip-off.
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